Hedge Funds Are Crazy About TreeHouse Foods Inc. (THS)

With a general bullishness amongst the heavyweights, key money managers have jumped into TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS) headfirst. Empyrean Capital Partners assembled the most outsized call position in TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS). Empyrean Capital Partners had $66.1 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management also initiated a $31.5 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new THS positions are Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value LP, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, and Benjamin A. Smith’s Laurion Capital Management.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB), Nice Systems Ltd (ADR) (NASDAQ:NICE), Retail Properties of America Inc (NYSE:RPAI), and ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD). This group of stocks’ market caps are similar to THS’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 20 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $346 million, compared to $462 million in THS’s case. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Retail Properties of America Inc (NYSE:RPAI) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. TreeHouse Foods Inc. (NYSE:THS) is not the most popular stock in this group, but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal, but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard ACAD might be a better candidate to consider a long position.